The Senate of Pakistan on Tuesday passed the bill to amend Railways Act, 1980 with majority of the votes which was aimed to remove duplication of punishments in other laws.
Federal minister for law and Justice Azam Nazeer Tarar moved that the Bill further to amend the Railways Act, 1890 [The Railways (Amendment) Bill, 2022], as passed by the National Assembly, be taken into consideration.
The minister said that a similar offense was repeated in three different laws. In Railway Act, the punishment of death penalty, life imprisonment, other punishments along with low financial penalties were mentioned in the case as the railway installations had been damaged with willful intention.
Similarly, in Anti Terrorism Act same punishments were repeated but with high financial penalties and Pakistan Penal Code (PPC) also cover the subject.
He said to remove duplication the previous government had started exercise to review all those duplicate laws.
He said the bill was referred in the committee from the National Assembly where it was discussed at length and subsequently cleared without objection.
Leader of the opposition Shahzad Waseem said that the law is from the colonial era however the government should also correct other laws from the colonial time which particularly are used to suppress the democratic voices. Such laws are used against political opponents.
The law minister welcomed the suggestion of opposition leader and said that the government expects from the opposition to correct their democratic attitude.
The opposition will have to accept democratic norms and the power of vote and the supremacy of the parliament and the opposition will have to sit in the parliament to debate on such issues. He said the parliament would be strengthening if such norms are adopted.
